How environmentally (un)sustainable is organic pig production? The Dutch case

Sustainable agriculture is considered as an appropriate alternative to what some would see as the more environmentally harmful conventional agriculture. Among the existing options within sustainable agriculture, organic farming is probably the most widely adopted. Certification of organic products aims to guarantee that organic agriculture rules are satisfied. However, certification does not always relate to sustainable practices. The present work uses database analysis to obtain a general picture of organic pig production in The Netherlands in terms of environmental sustainability. To do so the nitrogen pollution potential and other parameters of the system are evaluated. Farms were divided into four production types: grazing, mixed-vegetable, mixed-husbandry and swine (i.e. pigs). The results presented here reveal that 72% of the farms do not adjust the number of animals to the farm size. Consequently, the production of nitrogen often surpasses the limit stated by the EU (170 kg N ha^?1 y^?1). In general, swinetype farms have smaller farm sizes and are among the most polluting ones. These farms cannot be considered as a land-related production, one of the premises for organic husbandry according to the EU regulation. This illustrates that the fulfilment of the law does not necessarily entail the implementation of organic principles. To address this dilemma, share-land agreements are proposed as an alternative to allow specialized farms to diversify production and support biological cycles within the agroecosystem that emerges from between-farm collaborations.     

河岸植被对防治河水污染的拦截作用探讨

以山西沁河源头河水为研究对象,通过四种试验模式,测定30°草坡、18°草坡、乔灌草植被带、灌草植被带对研究区常用化肥尿素、硫酸钾、复合肥中NO2-、NO3-、NH4+、PO43-四种离子的拦截率。结果表明:18o草坡对不同化肥溶液中各离子的拦截作用均强于30o草坡;乔灌草搭配对各化肥溶液中NO3-、NO2-、PO43-、NH4+离子的拦截率在1m、2m、3m处均大于灌草搭配,乔灌草搭配对4种离子的拦截作用强于灌草搭配。建议河岸缓冲区设计时,结合实际条件,坡度设计越缓越能起到净化水质的作用;在河岸植被构建时,优先考虑乔灌草植被带搭配。     

论污染企业周边民众的权利保障

近年来因污染企业引发的环境冲突一直呈高发态势,而民众对自身权利的伸张是冲突的主要诉求。保障污染企业周边民众的各项权利既是以人为本执政理念的集中体现,也是社会建设良性运行的必要条件,更是公平正义弘扬彰显的现实要求。构建这一保障体系需要政府、企业、环保部门、民政部门、非政府组织和民众自身等多元主体的参与,并且需要运用法律的、经济的、行政的和教育的等多种复合手段。     

Airing Your Dirty Laundry: A Quick Marketable Pollution Permits Game for the Classroom

In this article, the authors describe a simple classroom game that demonstrates the advantage of tradable emissions permits in regulating environmental pollution. Students take on the role of polluters who must consider the costs of complying with a uniform reduction and a tradable permits program. The class is divided into high-cost polluters and low-cost polluters so students can observe the gains from trade as high-cost students purchase pollution rights from the low-cost students in the tradable permits scenario. A major advantage of the game is that it can be conducted within as little as 20 minutes and does not require that students have prior knowledge of economics or regulatory policies. This makes the game appropriate for economics and noneconomics courses alike.     

我国环境规制与污染密集型产业发展的协整机制——基于VAR模型和VEC模型的实证研究

利用2000—2011年我国环境规制和3个典型的污染密集型产业的面板数据,运用协整分析、Granger因果关系分析、VAR模型和VEC模型等方法和工具,分析了我国环境污染治理投资强度与3个污染密集型产业发展的相互关系。结果表明:环境污染治理投资强度和3个污染密集型产业的发展均存在长期协整均衡关系;污染密集型产业的发展均能构成环境污染治理投资强度变化的Granger成因,反之则不成立;当短期波动使环境污染治理投资强度与3个污染密集型产业发展的关系偏离长期均衡状态时,偏离部分将在当年被不同程度地调整和修正。最后,提出环境规制应为实现我国两型社会保驾护航的政策建议。     

环境污染的经济学分析及其治理对策

环境问题已成为21世纪影响我国经济持续发展的重要因素。文章从经济学的角度对环境问题进行了分析，认为外部性影响导致市场失灵是环境污染的经济根源所在，同时，提供出解决问题的对策和建议。     

经济发展与水环境监测指标的耦合关联性研究

以山东省为例,研究经济发展与水环境污染之间的关系,把物理学中的耦合概念引入经济发展指标GDP与水污染监测指标相关关系的研究中,通过构建GDP与水污染监测指标的耦合关联度模型,求得水污染监测指标与GDP之间的关联度,并分析评价了GDP与水污染的耦合作用机制。计算结果表明,GDP与生活、工业废水诸因素之间存在耦合关系,且GDP对生活废水的耦合作用要高于工业废水。在此基础上,提出相关建议和措施以缓解生活污水的污染进程,改善区域水环境,实现地区经济和生态环境的协调发展。     

Responsible investment in the Chinese stock market

This paper provides insights into the current development of responsible investment in the Chinese stock market. We find that responsible investment can bring portfolio benefits to investors, and institutional investors have a holding preference for stocks in responsible investment indexes. By using a national air pollution proxy, we find that investors’ pessimistic mood on days with heavy air pollution has a negative influence on the stock return of A-shares, while stocks in responsible investment indexes display improved performance over the same time period. We use aggregated trading data to study the trading preference of Chinese retail investors on days when they are influenced by air pollution, and find that their total trading ratio shows a negative influence for both A-shares and responsible investment indexes. Moreover, there is more seller-initiated trading of the whole sample but more buyer-initiated trading of stocks in responsible investment indexes on air pollution days. This finding is consistent with the different stock return performances of these two samples. Our finding extends the studies of responsible investment to emerging markets and presents new evidence about the influence of environmental factors on trading behavior and return performance.     

外商直接投资与中国雾霾治理——基于要素市场扭曲视角的分析

结合寻租理论与地方政府竞争理论，以外资企业与地方政府互动为切入点，构建"FDI-要素市场扭曲-雾霾污染"的逻辑框架，基于中国2004~2018年城市面板数据，构造动态空间杜宾模型与空间联立方程模型研究FDI对雾霾污染的影响机制，结果显示：（1）FDI既通过产业结构升级、环境技术溢出（区域内与区域间）、源自全球价值链分工的空间溢出发挥治霾效应，又通过要素市场扭曲（区域内与区域间）与经济规模加剧雾霾，最终总体上有利于治霾；（2）为吸引FDI，地方政府在要素市场上存在"逐底竞争"，加剧了要素市场扭曲；（3）要素市场扭曲削弱了FDI的产业结构升级效应与环境技术溢出效应，并刺激其经济增长效应，从而不利于发挥其治霾效应；（4）雾霾污染存在显著的路径依赖特征与空间溢出效应，并抑制偏好优质环境的FDI的流入。     

Disability insurance and environmental tax policy in a zero net emissions society

This study aims to show the importance of disability insurance from an environmental policy perspective. Within the framework of an overlapping generations model, we derive the emissions tax rate required to achieve zero net pollution. Our model implies that the emissions tax rate is always lower in the presence of disability insurance than it is in the absence of disability insurance. The results suggest that disability insurance can be used as an instrument for increasing gross domestic product performance when the government implements a zero net emissions policy.